Archive for January, 2010

If you’re wondering where we were last week, we were doing the same thing Conrad was doing. Sorry for the unannounced sabbatical, but since the site wasn’t burned down in my absence, and we did put out a pretty rocking podcast, I assume all is well.

You may be asking why this strip has a certain pink-and-magenta-based holiday at its core, and I will tell you. If you are doing a Valentine’s self promotion for your design business, now is the time of making. Not that I’m going to, necessarily. No, my efforts are being put into this contest for the Nebraska AIGA chapter. They do this sort of thing from time to time as a creative exercise and a fundraiser (free to enter, though). Since there’s absolutely no rule stating that you must be a Nebraska resident to enter, I highly suggest rocking something out and entering it. I expect my entries to be full of … character?

It was exactly one year ago today that Nate set up the @36Point Twitter account, and told me to use it. That weekend we drove to Fort Smith to help judge the AAF-Fort Smith ADDY show, and documented the travel with regular tweeting. The following week, we decided we’d ask our wonderful show listeners to ask us our take on anything design related via Twitter, and recorded our first Twitter Show (The Reflex Blue Show #26).

A year later, we figured it was time again – a whole show talking about what was sent to us just an hour or so before recording. @nick_merritt, @iKitty, and @notoriouslb3 ask – and we answer.

I submit today’s strip as the new litmus test of what true bad design can bring upon the world. So no more bitching about Papyrus or Comic Sans. Even spec-work doesn’t unleash demon spawn from a non-hell.

I admit though, I am very turned-on by the idea of developing a typeface of my own at this point. Something to replace Anime Ace here on the comic would be good. I’m not guaranteeing anything here, but it’s something Jeff Smith did for Bone a decade ago and it worked wonders for the lettering-to-art juxtaposition in his work. And based on what Newton’s face looks like these days you can bet just about anything that man does is something I want to do.

I just want to say that the most important thing to take away from all of this is that Conrad has switched to black pants, and that’s a major step for me. I actually looked at Marie’s very first character sketch in an old sketchbook and she originally had a lot more black to her look as well, so look for that in the future. Some things didn’t transition as smoothly to black-and-white and I had thought, and others were apparently built for it, I just forgot. For, you know, a year.

Over the weekend I was working up some design concepts for a new client project. In my head I crafted the perfect set of type, to move and play off one another in a beautiful dance filled with rounded slab-serif italics and contrasting weights. Then my world came crashing down around me when I saw the pricetag — which was not exaggerated for today’s strip.

My disappointment turned into anger, and from anger to feelings of persecution. My client deserves a perfect solution to their design problem, as does any client. But my client can’t afford a perfect solution, and I cannot justify four hundred dollars for two typefaces. In my entire career, I have never, ever been able to justify the purchase of a typeface for a project. Not when I was working for an employer, and not now that I work for myself. Maybe at the $50 range, and maybe once. Even then, we’re talking about a single style at a single weight. For fifty. Dollars.

I’m of the opinion that typographic design world faces a similar problem the music industry faced a few years ago — only worse. Essentially they’re selling computer software, and when you sell computer software, you deal with piracy. Sadly, type designers also have to deal with amateur hour over at every 1001 free font dot com in the world, peddling crap that just might work for us designers (like Anime Ace, the current type that 1PT.Rule is set in) when we can’t afford the real deal. Did I go to Veer and House to check out type when I started this strip? Hell yes. Did I balk at the pricetag and settle for less? Hell also yes. If you think graphic designers have it bad justifying work and pricetags in the face of amateurs and undercutters, I can tell you we’ve got nothing on type designers.

So in order to combat those issues, and make the most of the sales they get, new type designs are priced sky high. This also demonstrates the principle of value-through-price-point, as in, “our type is better because it is wicked expensive,” a marketing trick that almost all of us fall for every single day. My problem is that this has created a serious barrier for entry for those of us with small operations and small-budgeted clients. So it is in fact tougher for the little guys to produce big design — despite talent, enthusiasm, knowhow, and need.

To this day I believe that Helvetica Bold should cost $5. Helvetica Bold Italic should also be $5, and they should be sold through an iTunes-like service that also manages the fonts on your computer system. An iTunes Music Store for fonts, with matching appropriate pricing. Granted, Helvetica Bold Italic is not going to sell near as many copies as Lady Gaga’s latest single, but under this model it would solve at least the piracy problem (look at iTunes’ $1 price-point effect on music piracy for the general public) and by making the great typefaces as readily available as the crap out there for free, you stem the tide of garbage in, garbage out from designers using them.

I could go on. For $400 I could buy a Dyson, a Playstation 3, a Kindle, or two iPhones. Or two fonts. I know they take a long time to make and are a delicate craft, but after eight years and maybe only one purchase, how can these prices be justified?

Donovan Beery

\\ Bio

Donovan oversees all creative development at Eleven19 Communications, Inc., where he also serves as an owner. He received a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication & Design from the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

His background in visual communications, web design, and creative concepts were put to good use when he was the chief web designer at Union Pacific and the corporate identity and web designer at Nexterna. He’s lectured on web design at Creighton University, taught visual communications at Metropolitan Community College and proudly served seven years on the board of directors for AIGA Nebraska. In 2009, Donovan was appointed by Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey to a three-year term on the Omaha Public Art Commission.